whimsy

Friday, 28 September 2012

a rain stick

I've seen these on my web wanderings so when a very thick cardboard tube found its way to our house I knew exactly what to do with it. Make a rain stick.

Rain sticks are actually traditional instruments in many cultures. The
Diaguita people from Chili made them from dried cactus filled with
pebbles. When they rattled the pebbles, it sounded like rain falling,
which was supposed to remind the forgetful rain gods to make it rain.

1) T ( loved!) helping me hammer in nails along the length of the tube and all around it, there's a picture below of how it looks from the inside once you've done this. Use nails that are short enough to not go right through the other side of the tube (you could use longer ones hammered in on an angle if that's all you had available). The nails help slow down the things you put inside later.

2) We closed off one end of the tube by covering it with paper and thick sellotape, we also covered the rest of the tube with paper and used clear glue to attach feathers and other bits we had in our drawer. We put on some sticky dots too.

3) After it dried I covered the whole thing in clear book cover to help keep everything attached.

4) In the open end of the tube we poured in 1 cup of buttons. We used buttons because the tube we used was quite wide and long, we would've needed heeeepas of rice which is a waste. You could use anything small and hard like marbles, chick peas, lentils, macaroni, buttons, rice etc- I guess it depends on the size of tube you're using.

5) Cover over and seal up the open tube end.

6) Tip the tube up and listen to the contents fall down to the other end- does it sound like rain?